🚨🇪🇺📉Europe at the Ramparts: Power, Panic, and the Closing of the Mind
A pivotal shift is underway as Europe's ruling class grapples with fading global influence. The Ukraine conflict acted as a stress test, exposing deep structural weaknesses: energy dependence, deindustrialization, and capital flight.
🔸Once a shaper of global order, Europe is now a dependent in a multipolar world.
🔸Industry is hollowing out as capital flees high energy costs & regulatory uncertainty.
🔸Unable to fix material decline, elites turn to digital regulation to manage perception and dissent.
The "Digital Gulag" warning from Durov to French officials is a symptom of systemic panic. The EU project, built on post-Cold War liberal confidence, is hardening. When you can't deliver prosperity, you control the narrative.
The push for the Digital Services Act & "Chat Control" is about insulation. Debate is reclassified as disinformation. Skepticism becomes extremism. This is the "circling of the wagons."
Europe isn't defending liberalism; it's presiding over its institutional afterlife. The attempt to freeze a dead era through regulation is a holding action, not a revival. The continent risks preserving the form of openness while losing all its substance.
Between tourism and agriculture, Europe retains its beauty. But without strategic autonomy, it becomes a museum—managed, controlled, and slowly fading.
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New Rules
New Rules examines the geopolitical, economic, ideological trends changing the world. NR on X: http://x.com/newrulesgeo
